Active Democracy Network shared preliminary results of the EGCI at the 38th General Assembly of the OAS

Delegates of 12 countries were present at the Activities of the General Assembly of the OAS, particularly at the informal dialogue with Secretary General Insulza and the formal Dialogue with the Official Delegates of the 34 member countries of the institution.

Catalina Delpiano of Corporacion PARTICIPA intervened in the meeting with Mr. Insulza, which more than 100 people attended, highlighting the existence of this hemispheric Network present in 23 countries, with 10 years of experience in the following up of the commitments attained at the Summits of the America. She also talked of the expectation that the efforts of the OAS and the member countries will contribute to the work of follow-up that they are doing today through the EGCI, in order to determine how each nation is progressing on their compliance with the mandates that they committed to at their meetings in the inter-American system. She was appreciative of the support of ACDI, CIDI/OAS, OSI and the Summits Secretariat, because thanks to their contribution this initiative is made possible.

The Dialogue with the official Delegates included more than 400 people in attendance, in which there were 16 interventions by the Civil Society and 13 by the governments. Kris Rampersad, of the Network for NGO’s of Trinidad and Tobago for Advancement of Women and in representation of the Network made his intervention, pointing out that the work that is taking place in the 23 countries that make up the Network will bear fruit with the Evaluation of Government Compliance Index. The preliminary results in 9 countries point out that the progress in the fulfillment of the mandates for the strengthening of democracy is slow, modest and in some cases worrying. The best-evaluated area is Access to Information, and that area which represents the biggest setbacks is Decentralization and Strengthening of citizen participation. This last one is worrying in that it is the base for democratic practices.